Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 140 / Monday, July 26, 2021 / Notices 40029 

1Under the current rules, borrowers with William 

D. Ford Federal Direct Loans can make qualifying 

payments toward PSLF, and borrowers with Federal 

Family Education Loans (FFEL) can consolidate 

into Direct Consolidation Loans to become eligible 

for PSLF. 

the quality, utility, and clarity of the 

information to be collected; and (5) how 

might the Department minimize the 

burden of this collection on the 

respondents, including through the use 

of information technology. Please note 

that written comments received in 

response to this notice will be 

considered public records. 

Title of Collection: National 

Implementation Study of Student 

Support and Academic Enrichment 

Grants (Title IV, Part A). 

OMB Control Number: 1850–NEW. 

Type of Review: New collection. 

Respondents/Affected Public: State, 

Local, and Tribal Governments. 

Total Estimated Number of Annual 

Responses: 661. 

Total Estimated Number of Annual 

Burden Hours: 327. 

Abstract: This study will collect 

information about policy and program 

implementation of the grants 

administered under Title IV, Part A of 

the Elementary and Secondary 

Education Act of 1965, as amended by 

the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), 

to describe and report on districts’ 

decision-making process for use of Title 

IV, Part A funds, how states help inform 

districts’ decisions, and what topic areas 

and activities are funded with Title IV, 

Part A funds. 

Dated: July 21, 2021. 

Stephanie Valentine, 

PRA Coordinator, Strategic Collections and 

Clearance, Governance and Strategy Division, 

Office of Chief Data Officer, Office of 

Planning, Evaluation and Policy 

Development. 

[FR Doc. 2021–15877 Filed 7–23–21; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4000–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

[Docket ID ED—2021—OUS—0082] 

Request for Information Regarding the 

Public Service Loan Forgiveness 

Program 

AGENCY: Office of the Under Secretary, 

U.S. Department of Education. 

ACTION: Request for information. 

SUMMARY: The U.S. Department of 

Education (Department) is requesting 

information in the form of written 

comments that may include 

information, research, and suggestions 

regarding the administration of the 

Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) 

program. The Office of the Under 

Secretary solicits these comments to 

identify operational improvements to 

the PSLF program and to inform 

determinations about technical 

improvements, borrower experiences, 

policy considerations, or other factors 

that should be considered to improve 

access to PSLF. 

DATES: We must receive your comments 

on or before September 24, 2021. 

ADDRESSES: Submit your response to 

this request for information (RFI) 

through the Federal eRulemaking Portal. 

We will not accept submissions by hand 

delivery, fax, or email. To ensure that 

we do not receive duplicate copies, 

please submit your comments only one 

time. To ensure that your comments 

have maximum effect in informing the 

Department’s administration of the 

PSLF program, we encourage you to 

clearly identify the question number or 

topic (e.g., ‘‘borrower experience,’’ 

‘‘proposed administrative/operational 

improvement,’’ and ‘‘proposed policy 

change,’’) that each comment addresses. 

• Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to 

www.regulations.gov to submit your 

comments electronically. Information 

on using Regulations.gov, including 

instructions for accessing agency 

documents, submitting comments, and 

viewing the docket, is available on the 

site under ‘‘FAQ.’’ 

• Postal Mail or Commercial Delivery: 

If you do not have internet access or 

electronic submission is not possible, 

you may mail written comments to the 

Office of the Under Secretary, U.S. 

Department of Education, 400 Maryland 

Avenue SW, Room [7E307], 

Washington, DC 20202. Mailed 

comments must be postmarked by 

September 24, 2021, to be accepted. 

Privacy Note: The Department’s 

policy is to make all comments received 

from members of the public available for 

public viewing in their entirety on the 

Federal eRulemaking Portal at 

www.regulations.gov. Therefore, 

commenters should be careful to 

include in their comments only 

information that they wish to make 

publicly available. 

This is a request for information only. 

This RFI is not a request for proposals 

(RFP) or a promise to issue an RFP or 

a notice inviting applications. This RFI 

does not commit the Department to 

contract for any supply or service 

whatsoever. Further, we are not seeking 

proposals and will not accept 

unsolicited proposals. The Department 

will not pay for any information or 

administrative costs that you may incur 

in responding to this RFI. The 

documents and information submitted 

in response to this RFI become the 

property of the U.S. Government and 

will not be returned. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. 

Jean-Didier Gaina, U.S. Department of 

Education, 400 Maryland Ave. SW, 

Room 2C172, Washington, DC 20202. 

Telephone: (202) 453–7551. Email: jeandidier.gaina@ed.gov. 

If you use a telecommunications 

device for the deaf (TDD) or a text 

telephone (TTY), call the Federal Relay 

Service (FRS), toll free, at 1–800–877– 

8339. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Background 

It is critical for our Nation to maintain 

a highly educated public service 

workforce to serve as teachers, nurses, 

physicians, servicemembers in our 

military, social workers, legal aid 

attorneys, and first responders, and in a 

wide range of other roles that serve our 

communities. Concerns about shortages 

across the public sector and public 

service workforce have persisted for 

decades. 

In response to these concerns about 

workforce shortages and rising student 

debt burdens, Congress enacted the 

College Cost Reduction and Access Act 

(Pub. L. 110–84) in 2007, creating a 

range of new benefits and protections 

for student loan borrowers, including 

the PSLF program. PSLF offers loan 

cancellation for Federal student loan 

borrowers who make 120 qualifying 

payments made while engaging in 

eligible public service work.1

The Department is committed to 

addressing the barriers to attaining PSLF 

and to providing debt relief to public 

service workers. To that end, the 

Department has announced its plans to 

establish negotiated rulemaking 

committees to prepare proposed 

regulations for programs authorized 

under title IV of the Higher Education 

Act of 1965, as amended (86 FR 28299), 

including the PSLF program under 34 

CFR 685.219. However, the Department 

recognizes that there may be 

improvements it can make in the 

operational administration of the 

program outside of the regulatory 

process. Through this RFI, the 

Department seeks comments from the 

public to identify such operational 

opportunities to strengthen the PSLF 

program. For example, we are interested 

in ways that we might eliminate 

administrative barriers to borrowers 

receiving PSLF. Below, we provide 

questions to guide responses to this RFI. 

Although we do not intend to respond 

to comments received in response to 

this RFI, public input may inform nonVerDate Sep<11>2014 18:45 Jul 23, 2021 Jkt 253001 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 4703 Sfmt 4703 E:\FR\FM\26JYN1.SGM 26JYN1

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40030 Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 140 / Monday, July 26, 2021 / Notices 

2https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/ 

forgiveness-cancellation/public-service. 

3See 34 CFR 685.219 for the complete definition 

of ‘‘public service organization.’’ 

4https://studentaid.gov/data-center/student/loanforgiveness/pslf-data. 

5https://studentaid.gov/data-center/student/loanforgiveness/pslf-data. 

6https://studentaid.gov/data-center/student/loanforgiveness/pslf-data. 

7https://studentaid.gov/data-center/student/loanforgiveness/pslf-data. 

8https://studentaid.gov/articles/see-whats-newpslf-program/. 

9https://studentaid.gov/pslf/. 

10https://studentaid.gov/data-center/student/ 

loan-forgiveness/pslf-data. 

regulatory action by the Department to 

make this critical program work better 

for borrowers. Comments with respect 

to regulatory matters must be made as 

part of the negotiated rulemaking 

process. 

II. Public Service Loan Forgiveness 

Program 

After Congress enacted the College 

Cost Reduction and Access Act 14 years 

ago, the Department promulgated 

regulations to implement the PSLF 

program. The Department also entered 

into a contract with the Pennsylvania 

Higher Education Assistance Agency (d/ 

b/a FedLoan Servicing) to serve as the 

sole specialty student loan servicer 

handling borrowers who signal intent to 

pursue PSLF. Under 34 CFR 685.219, 

the Department established and 

subsequently revised the criteria a 

borrower must satisfy in order to have 

debts cancelled under PSLF. 

Specifically, these regulations require 

a student loan borrower to satisfy five 

elements. To receive PSLF, a borrower 

must— 2

• Be employed by a U.S. Federal, 

State, local, or Tribal government or notfor-profit organization; 3

• Work full-time for that agency or 

organization or the equivalent of fulltime across multiple agencies or 

organizations; 

• Have Direct Loans (or consolidate 

other Federal student loans into a Direct 

Loan); 

• Repay those loans under an incomedriven repayment or standard 

repayment plan; and 

• Make 120 qualifying payments. 

From 2007 through 2012, public 

service workers with student debt 

tracked their own progress toward 

meeting the requirements for PSLF. 

When borrowers working in public 

service had questions about eligibility, 

the Department’s servicers were 

borrowers’ primary source of 

information about PSLF. Beginning in 

2012, the Department offered student 

loan borrowers the opportunity to 

submit an Employer Certification Form 

(ECF) as a way for borrowers to provide 

documentation of qualifying 

employment throughout their service 

and to ensure their employer was a 

qualifying employer. In November 2020, 

the Department combined the ECF into 

a single application that also allows 

borrowers to have their status checked 

for PSLF and Temporary Expanded 

PSLF (TEPSLF) (Pub. L. 115–141), 

described below. As of November 30, 

2020, student loan borrowers had 

submitted nearly 5 million individual 

ECFs.4 As of April 30, 2021, another 

391,333 combined applications were 

submitted.5

On October 1, 2017, the first public 

service workers with student debt 

became eligible to receive PSLF. Since 

that time, the Department has 

discharged $452,691,032 in student debt 

owed by 5,467 individual public service 

workers as of April 30, 2021.6

However, to date nearly 98 percent of 

student loan borrowers who have 

applied for PSLF did not receive 

forgiveness at the time of their 

application, however the majority of 

these borrowers have made some 

progress toward cancellation.7 In 

response to the problems borrowers 

have faced while trying to access PSLF, 

the Department’s Federal Student Aid 

office has started taking important steps 

to make improvements to the program.8

Lump-sum payments and prepayments, 

which would not have previously 

counted for the purposes of PSLF, will 

now count toward borrowers’ PSLF 

qualifying payments for up to 12 

months. FSA also launched a new PSLF 

Help Tool in November 2020 to make it 

easier for borrowers to navigate PSLF to 

determine their eligibility and, as noted 

above, created a single form that allows 

borrowers to certify their employment 

and apply for PSLF and TEPSLF.9

In response to the first reports of 

widespread PSLF application denials, 

Congress temporarily expanded PSLF to 

provide debt relief to a broader 

population of student loan borrowers, 

establishing TEPSLF. In the three years 

since TEPLSF was first established, an 

additional 2,962 public service workers 

have had approximately $130 million 

discharged, while more than 96 percent 

of TEPSLF applications have not 

resulted in forgiveness.10

III. Solicitation of Comments: 

Strengthening the Operational 

Implementation of Public Service Loan 

Forgiveness 

The Department recognizes the 

importance of making the PSLF 

requirements as clear as possible for 

millions of public service workers and 

is actively working to make 

improvements to the program’s 

administration. To help inform those 

efforts, the Department is seeking input 

from the public on ways to strengthen 

the operational implementation of PSLF 

through changes outside of regulations. 

The deadline for these submissions is 

September 24, 2021. 

The Department encourages 

comments from individual students and 

student loan borrowers; organizations 

representing students and student loan 

borrowers; labor unions and other 

organizations representing public 

service workers; legal services providers 

and other organizations that provide 

counseling or direct assistance to 

student loan borrowers; public service 

employers; researchers and policy 

experts; student loan market 

participants; institutions of higher 

education; and other members of the 

public. 

The Department is interested in 

responses to the specific questions 

below, as well as the general concepts 

and topics identified as they relate to 

PSLF. The Department is also interested 

in responses describing individual 

student loan borrowers’ experiences 

while working in public service or 

pursuing PSLF. When responding to 

this RFI, please address one or more of 

the following questions: 

Public Service & Student Debt 

1. What are the direct and indirect 

effects of student debt on America’s 

public service workforce? 

2. What are the direct and indirect 

benefits of PSLF for America’s public 

service workforce, including the effects 

of PSLF on individual borrowers, on the 

labor market, on communities, and on 

the populations served by public service 

workers? 

3. Does PSLF provide a strong 

incentive for borrowers to engage in 

public service work? How are public 

service workers’ employment decisions 

affected by their debt and by PSLF? 

Experiences With Public Service Loan 

Forgiveness 

4. What borrower experiences should 

the Department and Congress consider 

when making improvements to PSLF? 

5. What features of PSLF are most 

difficult for borrowers to navigate? 

6. What role do loan servicers play in 

making it easier or harder for borrowers 

to access PSLF? 

7. What barriers prevent public 

service workers with student debt from 

pursuing PSLF or receiving loan 

forgiveness under PSLF? 


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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 140 / Monday, July 26, 2021 / Notices 40031 

8. For borrowers who have or had 

loans other than from the Direct Loan 

program, what have your experiences 

been when trying to access or 

participate in PSLF? 

9. How can communications about 

PSLF requirements be improved? 

10. What are the common questions 

that borrowers have about PSLF? 

Opportunities To Strengthen PSLF for 

Borrowers Who Currently Work in 

Public Service 

11. What operational steps can the 

Department take to strengthen PSLF and 

better serve public service workers who 

currently owe student debt, including 

borrowers who have already applied for 

and been denied PSLF? 

12. What steps can the Department 

take to improve borrowers’ experiences 

in applying for PSLF? 

13. What steps or improvements can 

servicers make to improve borrowers’ 

experiences in applying for PSLF? 

14. What can the Department do to 

better partner with employers to ensure 

that all borrowers know about the 

benefits of PSLF? 

The Effects of the COVID–19 Pandemic 

on Student Loan Borrowers Working in 

Public Service 

15. How has the COVID–19 pandemic 

affected borrowers’ ability to access 

PSLF? 

16. Are there any considerations 

about PSLF that the Department should 

bear in mind as it prepares for the end 

of the COVID–19 administrative 

forbearance on Direct Loans? 

Accessible Format: On request to the 

program contact person listed under FOR

FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT, 

individuals with disabilities can obtain 

this document in an accessible format. 

The Department will provide the 

requestor with an accessible format that 

may include Rich Text Format (RTF) or 

text format (txt), a thumb drive, an MP3 

file, braille, large print, audiotape, or 

compact disc, or other accessible format. 

Electronic Access to This Document: 

The official version of this document is 

the document published in the Federal 

Register. You may access the official 

edition of the Federal Register and the 

Code of Federal Regulations at 

www.govinfo.gov. At this site you can 

view this document, as well as all other 

documents of this Department 

published in the Federal Register, in 

text or Portable Document Format 

(PDF). To use PDF you must have 

Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is 

available free at the site. 

You may also access documents of the 

Department published in the Federal 

Register by using the article search 

feature at www.federalregister.gov. 

Specifically, through the advanced 

search feature at this site, you can limit 

your search to documents published by 

the Department. 

Program Authority: 20 U.S.C. 

1087e(m). 

Julie Margetta Morgan, 

Delegated the authority to perform the 

functions and duties of the Under Secretary, 

Senior Advisor, Office of the Under Secretary. 

[FR Doc. 2021–15831 Filed 7–23–21; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4000–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

[Docket No.: ED–2021–SCC–0111] 

Agency Information Collection 

Activities; Comment Request; 

Implementation of Title I/II–A Program 

Initiatives—Preliminary Activities 

AGENCY: Institute of Educational Science 

(IES), Department of Education (ED). 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: In accordance with the 

Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, ED is 

proposing a new information collection. 

DATES: Interested persons are invited to 

submit comments on or before 

September 24, 2021. 

ADDRESSES: To access and review all the 

documents related to the information 

collection listed in this notice, please 

use http://www.regulations.gov by 

searching the Docket ID number ED– 

2021–SCC–0111. Comments submitted 

in response to this notice should be 

submitted electronically through the 

Federal eRulemaking Portal at http://

www.regulations.gov by selecting the 

Docket ID number or via postal mail, 

commercial delivery, or hand delivery. 

If the regulations.gov site is not 

available to the public for any reason, 

ED will temporarily accept comments at 

ICDocketMgr@ed.gov. Please include the 

docket ID number and the title of the 

information collection request when 

requesting documents or submitting 

comments. Please note that comments 

submitted by fax or email and those 

submitted after the comment period will 

not be accepted. Written requests for 

information or comments submitted by 

postal mail or delivery should be 

addressed to the PRA Coordinator of the 

Strategic Collections and Clearance 

Governance and Strategy Division, U.S. 

Department of Education, 400 Maryland 

Ave. SW, LBJ, Room 6W208C, 

Washington, DC 20202–8240. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For 

specific questions related to collection 

activities, please contact Erica Johnson, 

202–245–7676. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The 

Department of Education (ED), in 

accordance with the Paperwork 

Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA) (44 U.S.C. 

3506(c)(2)(A)), provides the general 

public and Federal agencies with an 

opportunity to comment on proposed, 

revised, and continuing collections of 

information. This helps the Department 

assess the impact of its information 

collection requirements and minimize 

the public’s reporting burden. It also 

helps the public understand the 

Department’s information collection 

requirements and provide the requested 

data in the desired format. ED is 

soliciting comments on the proposed 

information collection request (ICR) that 

is described below. The Department of 

Education is especially interested in 

public comment addressing the 

following issues: (1) Is this collection 

necessary to the proper functions of the 

Department; (2) will this information be 

processed and used in a timely manner; 

(3) is the estimate of burden accurate; 

(4) how might the Department enhance 

the quality, utility, and clarity of the 

information to be collected; and (5) how 

might the Department minimize the 

burden of this collection on the 

respondents, including through the use 

of information technology. Please note 

that written comments received in 

response to this notice will be 

considered public records. 

Title of Collection: Implementation of 

Title I/II–A Program Initiatives— 

Preliminary Activities. 

OMB Control Number: 1850–NEW. 

Type of Review: A new information 

collection. 

Respondents/Affected Public: State, 

Local, and Tribal Governments. 

Total Estimated Number of Annual 

Responses: 92. 

Total Estimated Number of Annual 

Burden Hours: 15. 

Abstract: When the primary federal 

law governing K–12 schooling was 

updated in 2015 as the Every Student 

Succeeds Act (ESSA), it shifted many 

decisions to states and districts. 

However, through two of its core 

programs (Title I and Title II–A), ESSA 

retained federal requirements for states 

to set challenging content standards, 

assess student performance, identify 

and support low-performing schools, 

and promote the development of the 

educator workforce. How states and 

districts respond to the combination of 

flexibility and requirements and how 

policies are enacted in schools and 

classrooms will determine whether 

ESSA stimulates educational 

improvement as intended, which is 

particularly important in the wake of 


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